“It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” Mr. Akin said of pregnancies from rape. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.”

Pregnancy from rape is rare, but it definitely happens. Most rape survivors have to deal with the PTSD already (which is already a terrible cross to bear for anybody). Clinical descriptions of sex incoming.

If you've ever had sex you'd probably know that to get any decent penetration the woman would need to be lubricated down there. Best way to get pregnant is if you have maximum penetration so the semen can reach the uterus and fertilize the ovum. With rape, lubrication is probably a no go. Either the rapist has to lube up his own penis (which is weird but rapists are kind of sick bastards already) or the woman is already pretty horny - but rape probably shuts that down really fast. But note that pregnancy is a fickle mistress, some men are more fertile than others and some women are more fertile than others - you also have to consider ovulation periods and such. I remember a case (and this was also in Scrubs) where a man ejaculated only around a woman's vagina without any actual penetration and the woman got pregnant because a small amount of it got into her vagina.

So, in short, yes, pregnancy as a result of rape is definitely a possibility. During rape, the female body has a way to biologically protect itself, but it doesn't always work. It takes some massive amounts of misfortune to hit all the right requirements, but it has happened before.

"A 1996 study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology reported that “among adult women an estimated 32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year.” This study said the rate of becoming pregnant after sexual assault is considerable, estimating that “the national rape-pregnancy rate is 5.0 percent per rape among victims of reproductive age (aged 12 to 45).”

Also:

"Each year, an estimated 32,000 women in the United States become pregnant as a result of rape. Of those women, many decide to terminate their pregnancies, rather than cope with the psychological torment of going through the pregnancy. Many others, for just as legitimate reasons, decide to carry the pregnancies to term. Most would assume that in this latter situation, the rapist would have no legal parental rights to the child. Sadly, this is not the case. For many women in this situation, there is a high likelihood under state family laws that the rapist could, indeed, gain parental rights. That risk is heightened for women receiving public assistance benefits."

With a wife who practices family law for a living, I would actually say that US law is very, very much in favor of biological parents no matter how unbelievably messed up they are. But I take your point.

Like I said, rape law as a concept needs to be revisited, since, as it stands now, it's very much a broken system that has way too many problems (truthfully I have this opinion on many laws where gender issues end up coming into play). If we wanted to be nitty gritty, I could name some cases where rape law was misused and abused by women to gain an advantage against a man. When a system is so screwed up that someone can take advantage of it in either direction, then we seriously need to either revisit it or create a new one to replace it.

I don't doubt your (and by extension, your wife's) expertise, I've just seen way too many stories about how people abused the system for their own benefit. Right now it just seems like it's creating more problems than it is actually solving.

I can't think of a human created system as complex as a codex of laws, for example, that is totally immune from abuse. Sometimes the things that get headlines have to do with bad judges. Sometimes bad laws. Sometimes somebody finding a loophole. I do agree it is far, FAR from perfect, no question, and sometimes people who shouldn't be screwed end up being screwed, but I guess my main questions remains "What's a better way to do it?"

We actually are in agreement on certain gender issues, certainly more so in some states than others, that are clinging to antiquated gender roles that have been codified into their laws. I'd also argue with equal fervor that there a lot of states and lawmakers that have gone out of their way to ATTEMPT to address it, some with modest success, some with well intentioned ideals that have had disastrous consequences..

But family law in particular is very, very much, a state by state issue, sharing only a very few laws at the federal level. And rape in particular is one of those areas that falls into that category where it is handled very differently depending on the state. I have no idea what the answer is to fix any of it, but I do agree that there are many parts of it that are broken.

EDIT: Also, just because I'm not sure a perfect system is possible doesn't mean we shouldn't try to do better! Totally in agreement with you there. And at any rate I think we can all probably agree with the original point here which is that Akin is probably is a dingus.

I'd like to be the first person to simply punch him in the face. Civil war because Obama is re-elected? What, are you a fucking lunatic or something, or do you just want all that unused militia budget to go in your pocket? I hope someone kicks him square in the balls.